


Day 1 - Trust

by ReaderRose



Series: 30 Days of Writing [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: 30 Days of Writing, Alternate Universe - Underfell, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, The Great And Terrible Papyrus, Trust Issues, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Undyne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderRose/pseuds/ReaderRose
Summary: 30 Days of WritingUNDERFELLThe Great and Terrible Papyrus trusts no one.





	Day 1 - Trust

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing the 30 Days of Writing Challenge for March!
> 
> I came very close to midnight on this (posted on tumblr on time but not here) so I didn't get this quite where I wanted it, but I do like it. Doesn't fit into my Unnamed Underfell series besides some worldbuilding details.

The Great And Terrible Papyrus doesn’t trust anyone, and he exclaims it, frequently and loudly, and Undyne, the Titleless And Tough, hits him in the head with a laugh, and tells him he’s an idiot.

They get into this fight a lot.

Usually it devolves too quickly into random insults and bodily harm to turn into a discussion.

Today is different.

 

The younger monster actually won today’s fight, quite handily, and Undyne is on the ground, laughing like she always does, and Papyrus, Great and Terrible as he is, is standing above her with a sneer and a bone club still drawn, dripping in ichor to match the stuff running down the side of the fallen fish’s face.

Yes, he’s got her now. Finally.

And the thought flickers in his skull that she is completely and utterly vulnerable right now, and part of him doesn’t believe that, cannot trust that, but it’s true. Blatantly, obviously true. Her good eye is unfocused and glazed, her brows are scrunched and tight, and she’s laughing like this is all nothing but fun, but…

_(His brother laughs all the time, and there is possibly no one in the Underground more **scared** than him.)_

Her HP is always more difficult than most to gauge, but it’s low. And his? It is  _very_ high. Today luck had favored him early, and the fight had unfolded to be one-sided. He watches her, laughing, coughing, twitching, and he  _knows_ it wouldn’t take much. And the captain they both swore in under? Xe is very, very old. It doesn’t take a famed puzzler and mathematician to see the opportunity in which he is being presented.

His grip tightens. He smirks.

 

“I COULD KILL YOU RIGHT NOW, YOU KNOW.”

 

He gloats.

And it feels so good to be ahead for once. It’s a rush. He’d never beaten her so handily before. Never had someone so powerful at his mercy. He understands, now, why so many monsters do nothing but this. It’s very fun, being the one with all the power for once!

How a battle ends has never felt like his choice before!

With a chuckle, Undyne replies, breathy but certain, “you won’t.”

“OH? WON’T I? NYEH HEH HEH.” His voice is dark, his laughter darker, and it’s so funny, because he’s  _almost certain_  she’s wrong. He hasn’t decided yet, but he knows where logic is pointing him. “AND HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”

Something flashes on her expression, but Papyrus has never been much for reading those. He doesn’t know what it means. Perhaps she realizes her delusions. But then she smirks, not like his, and says, simply, “because I trust you, dude.”

He stares at her, and she’s not laughing now. Just smirking– smiling at him.

He steps forward…

 

…and reaches out his arm. The bone club in his other hand has already dispersed. She takes it, and slowly pulls herself up.

He says nothing until she’s on two legs and brushes herself off. “LET’S JUST GET INSIDE ALREADY.”

 

Once the door is shut behind them, Undyne starts heating up some terrible noodle-based dish in the oven. She asks him if he wants any, and of course he says no. And of course she makes two bowls anyway, just to be difficult.

“HOW IS YOUR FACE?” he asks, purely to make conversation. He’s not a savage. It’s rude to be a silent guest. “DID I BREAK IT TOO HARD? ARE YOU IN UTTER AGONY?? PLEASE SHARE THE DETAILS OF YOUR TERRIBLE SUFFERING AT MY HANDS.”

“Pfft, YEAH RIGHT!” she turns from her vigil at the stove to show him her cleaned wound. It's… much smaller than it ought to have been. He was hoping half her face was gone. “This is like a widdle baby bump~”

“YOU HEALED IT!!” he accuses, because he saw the blood! Surely all that didn’t come out of that little hole!

“Suuure~ I used an awesomely rare and secret power to heal myself but didn’t even raise my HP!!” She laughs, mocking and vicious.

“YOU DID SOMETHING. YOU WERE LEAKING PROFUSELY. YOU GOT IT ALL OVER MY BONE. DISGUSTING!!!”

“If someone asks, I won’t even tell them you did it. I know how much the _‘Gweat and Tewwible Papywuss’_ cawes about his weputation! I’ll just tell them a widdle baby monster tapped me on the head~” She moves quicker than any practically-near-death monster has any right to move, and he’s in her clutches in an instant. “Just like THIS!!!!”

“STOP NOOGIEING THE GREAT AND TEERIBLE PAPYRUS!!!” His screaming is loud, and her laughter is louder, and he flails to get her to let go (making sure not to hit too hard, especially her face). “STOP!!! STOOOOP!!!”

 

She only stops when the oven catches fire soon after, which means the food is done. She deals with that while he waits patiently at the table for a meal he knows he’s going to hate.

“You know, you hit really freaking hard today,” she says simply as she sets a bowl down for him and sits across the table with her own. The noodles are extra crispy today. Maybe they won’t be so bad.

“YOU SLIPPED UP EARLY. THE REST WAS JUST LUCK.”

“Nah, dude, seriously. I thought, like, a few months ago when started this alliance? I thought 'this guy is all bluster. I got the captainship in the bag!’ but now? Really think it could be you.”

“OF COURSE IT WILL BE ME.”

“Yeah, OKAY. But seriously! I… I think I’m okay with it if it does end up being you?”

Papyrus (Great and Terrible™) smirks, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s a genuine compliment. Shows how much she… cares? That can’t be right. He doesn’t know how to handle anything that he can’t scoff at, and she might think he’s not ~~cool~~ terrible enough if he says the wrong thing. It could just be a trap. Everything is always a trap in this world.

 

And yet… the possibility exists this it isn’t. And he doesn’t know how to handle that. He can’t process it. It’s weird, and wrong, and he thinks he would like it, were it not so terrifying.

But you don’t become great and terrible by being afraid.

“IN… IN THE INCREDIBLY UNLIKELY AND VERY IMPROBABLE SCENARIO OF YOU BECOMING CAPTAIN OVER MY GREAT AND TERRIBLE SELF– WHICH WOULD SURELY ONLY BE THE RESULT OF OUR COMMANDER’S ADVANCED AGE AFFECTING XIR MENTAL PROCESSES!!!– I MIGHT FIND THE SITUATION… TOLERABLE.”

A fork clatters to the table as Undyne spits out blackened food with a sputter, and laughs open-mouthed in a manner that disgusts him. And she laughs some more. And some more. And more. And now he’s regretting not killing her. Between gulps for air, she manages to say “Papyrus! I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said! In your life!!!”

Magic burns across his face, and he looks away (in disgust. This is gross. Looking away is normal.), settling on the peeling wallpaper as a more interesting sight than the spectacle is host is making.

“YOU SHOULD SPEND MORE TIME EATING AND LESS TIME LAUGHING IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE HEALED UP BY TOMORROW.” He says, still glaring down the wall.

 

“Honestly, dude, I think it’s probably gonna be awhile before I’m back up to full…”

She sounds quiet.

He remembers her, down on the ground, feels the club in his hand, and wonders just how close he came to doing something the LV wouldn’t have even let him regret.

He turns to face her and her food is almost gone, and she is still so… weak. He can’t decide if he’s proud, or if he’s angry. Maybe angry he did it, but proud to be capable of it.

“I’ll have to find a healer. Dunno why they aren’t more common. You’d think they’d make bank! But for some reason people act like someone like that is just _walking weakness,”_ she says. As she twirls her fork around in the nearly-empty bowl, she sighs, “but that’s dumb.”

 

“WELL, SINCE WE DON’T KNOW ANY HEALERS, EAT! DON’T LET THEM CHARGE YOU EVEN MORE THAN YOU HAVE TO!” Then a thought occurs to him and he turns to push his food across the table. “IN FACT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY TAKE MY BOWL. IT IS ONLY FAIR, SEEING AS HOW I NEARLY OBLITERATED YOU WITH MY INCREDIBLE POWER.”

“NOPE!!! You’re my guest! I can’t feed myself without feeding you! It’s a law!”

“THAT’S A LIE.”

“Check the handbook again, page 57!”

“THAT PAGE DETAILS THE PENALTIES FOR FAILED PAYMENT OF THE SNOWBALL TAX”

“Oh my god!!! You do have every page memorized!!!”

“OF COURSE!” The skeleton puffs up his chest.

 

Undyne gets up to grab another noodle bowl from the hot fridge, and agrees to eat this one raw, without all the burning, as long as her guest eats too.

As the conversation lulls again, Papyrus replays the fight in his head for a second and third time, this time focused on the end.

_(“Because I trust you, dude.”)_

The Great and Terrible Papyrus does not trust anyone. But he supposes, as his defeated rival eats and he plays with a shifting green light between clawed phalanges beneath the table, that it may not hurt to reconsider. He doesn’t trust anyone, but maybe he wants to. It’s a bigger step than even he can take right now, but… He decides to start a waiting list. A list of people he might trust. Someday.

Undyne tops the list.

 

The glow in his hands dies, and Papyrus grabs his fork and joins her for dinner.


End file.
